


Lifestyle Upgrade

by matrixrefugee



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-20 01:20:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17612732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixrefugee/pseuds/matrixrefugee
Summary: Adapting to Pete's world will take some doing, but Jackie finds it marvellous





	Lifestyle Upgrade

**Author's Note:**

> Written for < lj user="tamingthemuse">'s "Prompt 396: Dirigible". Featuring Jackie. Rose and Pete Tyler as Jackie and Rose travel to a new home in Pete's World. Also written for [](https://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/profile)[fic_promptly](https://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/)'s [Doctor Who, Jackie Tyler, adjusting to a life of riches in Pete's World.](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/122867.html?thread=5857011#cmt5857011)

A flight in a dirigible to their new home in a remote area in Norway: the retro pleasure crafts proved a pragmatic form of travel. Pete had to disappoint Jackie and tell her that he did not own the airship, but he did own a large share in one of the companies that flew them, after he had helped a friend start it up, which meant they had a lifetime discount on their flights.

"Traveling by boat is impractical: harbors are vulnerable to Cybermen attacks," Pete had said, as they hovered hundreds of feet over the North Sea. "Same goes for airports, especially the larger terminals: Cybermen have used those as easy places to capture more people."

"But what about the landin' site for this thing?" Jackie asked, looking up at her husband, this man so unlike the man she had married and yet so like him, so fascinated by new things, and yet more practical about marketing them than her man had.

"Smaller place, fewer people, easier to defend," Pete said. "Torchwood's monitoring the landing platforms."

"Bet the young people with those Victorian steam-things are bonkers over these airships," Jackie said.

"It was getting fashionable: bit hard for 'em to keep that up, after the Cybermen emerged," Pete admitted.

"Took the fun out of it, no doubt," Jackie noted, then glanced down the companionway leading from the observation deck in the bow of the cabin. "I'd better go and check on Rose."

She found Rose in their private drawing room -- which Jackie had trouble finding: it would take some time for her to get used to having a private room like a rich traveler on some costume drama with ladies in fancy gowns and big hats. Her daughter sat curled up on the drawing room couch, knees up, arms around them, staring out the window, gazing at the water below them.

"Won't be long before we land: how're you holdin' up?" Jackie asked, sitting down beside her daughter.

"Only just," Rose murmured. Her mascara had run with her tears and she had tried to wipe it off. She had stopped crying some time ago, but her eyes still looked distant, unseeing as she gazed over the water.

"Still worryin' about him?" Jackie asked, meaning the Doctor.

"He's on one side of the world and I'm on another," Rose croaked.

"And maybe it's for the best: you needed to come home some time, and now it'll be the three of us," Jackie said, putting a comforting hand on her daughter's shoulder. She expected Rose to pull away, but she let the hand stay. "Now we really have a home, even if it's in another world. We've got your father: he cleaned up well."

"Bet you're lookin' forward to shopping in Oslo," Rose said, giving Jackie a wavery smile.

"Maybe not so much of that, with the war going on, those metal men," Jackie said.

"Cybermen. I fought those, me and him and Mickey," Rose said.

"Mickey? Sounds like he grew up," Jackie said, smirking.

"The Doctor does that: makes people better, or brings out the better part of themselves," Rose said, trying to sound brave.

Jackie tilted her daughter's head onto her shoulder. "Took me a while, but I can see that now: if you'd never met him, we'd never have found your father again, never have gotten a better life."

"With better income," Rose said, dryly.

"We'll need it, shorin' up the new home, according to your father," Jackie said.

"Listen to you, turning all freedom fighter," Rose said, managing a real smile.

"If it protects you and protects your father, it's money well spent," Jackie said.

"It's so odd, though," Rose said, the smile relaxing.

"What do you mean?"

"I met... you here. Another you. Really different."

"Better dressed?" She had to ask, sheer curiosity.

"Yeah, but she wasn't you. She was meaner, swottier," Rose said. "She didn't have me: named her dog 'Rose'."

"And you used to say I was so mean," Jackie said, with a smirk.

"Learned my lesson, after I met your mean twin," Rose replied.

The intercom pinged. _"Attention all passengers, this is your captain speaking: if you look below you, you will find we are flying over Scandinavia: we're entering Norwegian airspace and we should be landing in Oslo in an hour."_

"Guess we'd better start collectin' our baggage," Jackie said, dryly.

"The little that we have," Rose said, slipping her arm through her mum's.

* * * *

A convoy of trucks and vans awaited them when the airship docked, ready to receive the passengers, most of them Torchwood operatives, the rest of them members of "the household": servants and security staff members. Having people to tend the house and grounds, that would take some getting used to, but the sight of the young men and women in tactical gear made Jackie blink as they loaded into the vans.

"Quite a sight, aren't they?" Pete said, nudging Jackie, as he lead her to one of the vans, a young woman with a sidearm trailing them and Rose.

"Almost looks like something out of a police show," Jackie said.

"Best that money can hire?" Rose asked, dryly.

"Money didn't factor in much: we'd need the best trained young people we could find," Pete said, opening a rear door of one of the vans and helping his family inside.

The sun was setting as the convoy approached their destination; Rose sat up a little straighter as she looked out the window, and Jackie twitched awake, looking over her daughter's shoulder. A tall storm fence topped with a peculiar bluish field surrounded the grounds of an estate, a fine brick and timber house with a recently added moat.

"Energy field?" Rose asked.

"A prototype that Torchwood developed," Pete said as the convoy pulled in through a set of iron gates that opened at their approach. "I figured here would be a good place to give it a dry run."

"That must've cost a mint," Jackie noted.

"Been worth it: previous model zapped several Cybermen at a Torchwood safe house; this one's a few steps up," Pete said.

"Long as it keeps them things away," Jackie said.

The van crossed a drawbridge over the moat -- which Rose compared to a castle she had seen on Athos, not the mountain in Greece, but the planet -- and drew up before the door. Several guards from one of the forward vehicles got out, opened the doors of the rest of the vehicles, started helping people out and unloading the baggage. Their driver opened the rear doors and helped the three of them out.

"Like having footmen in some fancy palace," Jackie said, as Pete lead her up the steps to the front door, one of the guards going on ahead to open the door for them.

The door opened onto a marble-lined foyer, a curving staircase leading up to the mezzanine level. A uniformed maid and a manservant approached to collect the baggage. Jackie almost could not relinquish the bag she had carried in with her, but she let the maid take it.

"A lot to take in, isn't it?" Pete said, coming up beside Jackie.

"You own all this?" she asked.

"We're making use of it: house belonged to another Torchwood investor," Pete said. "Come on, let me take you upstairs, show you our rooms."

"I'd be a fool to say no," Jackie said, as Pete lead the way up the staircase.


End file.
